In terms of heartbreaking losses to the Boston Fleet, the\u00a0Montreal\u00a0Victoire has lived that before. But after losing 4-3 in overtime to the first-place Fleet despite taking a 3-0 lead into the third period, the Victoire is now looking at the positives.<\/p>\n
Unlike 2024 when the team lost three straight playoff games in overtime to Boston (9-5-2-3) and saw its season end in a sweep, 11 regular-season games remain and\u00a0Montreal\u00a0intends to move forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d much prefer this happening now than later on down the road, that\u2019s for sure,\u201d said Victoire head coach Kori Cheverie. \u201cThis is a great learning for us to have now instead of May.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added\u00a0Montreal\u00a0forward Laura Stacey: \u201cThe messaging, the feeling in the room is let it hurt tonight. We regroup, we have another game Thursday and we have to learn from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Stacey feels there\u2019s plenty\u00a0Montreal\u00a0(9-4-1-5) can take away from the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to learn, but there\u2019s also some really great things to be proud of,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re up 3-0 against the first-place team in the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur power play is clicking; our penalty kill killed a five-minute major in the third period. The physicality, the first 48 minutes of the game, we owned it. The shots on goal. Frankel is a great goaltender, to get three on her that\u2019s something to be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stacey\u2019s words have weight to them. With\u00a0Montreal\u00a0defender Erin Ambrose on long-term injured reserve and captain Marie-Philip Poulin leaving the game in the first period, Stacey is the only member of the team\u2019s usual leadership group remaining.<\/p>\n
With just over three minutes remaining in the first and\u00a0Montreal\u00a0on the power play, Poulin collided with Boston forward Shay Maloney at the side boards. Instantly she started favouring her right leg.<\/p>\n
It was the same leg she injured against Czechia at the Winter Olympics on Feb. 9. It forced her to miss two games at the Olympics, and Montreal\u2019s first PWHL contest following the Olympic break.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This was Montreal\u2019s fourth game after the Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been batting some adversity here, and I think with that being said it\u2019s pretty awesome to see how this team\u2019s coming together, how everybody\u2019s picking up the pieces,\u201d Stacey said. \u201cNobody\u2019s going to replace No. 29 out there, and we all know that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what we can do is every little thing we possibly can to try and win it as a team together. When your captain goes down, to see the way the group responded, to see that feeling in the locker room of \u2018We got this,\u2019 I think that\u2019s what you want to feel, that your team not only wants to lift her up, but they want to do it for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abby Roque, who had a goal and two assists in the game, was asked to step up in Poulin\u2019s absence. She moved to centre on the team\u2019s top line, and in the third period when the team was down two defenders because of penalties, she even was asked to play defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou go back to the drawing board,\u201d Roque said. \u201cI like to watch video the same night if I can get my hands on it \u2026 see what I did right, see what I did wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a team we like to do it as quickly as possible because you do have to learn from games like this, but you also have to let go and think of the positives, and you look at both of those and take the good, try to throw away the bad and we have quick turnaround to play Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u2018NEVER A DOUBT\u2019<\/p>\n
Boston head coach Kris Sparre is in his first season coaching the Fleet in the PWHL. But he has full confidence in his team, which moved three points ahead of\u00a0Montreal\u00a0atop the standings despite trailing 3-0 after 40 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou come into a building like this that\u2019s loud, and you have a team sitting here waiting for you for 11 days, it\u2019s a tough one to battle back from,\u201d he said. \u201cGoing into the third period, really, there was never a doubt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe said \u2018let\u2019s get one and see what happens. We got the first one relatively early, and then our bench took over from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 15, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In terms of heartbreaking losses to the Boston Fleet, the\u00a0Montreal\u00a0Victoire has lived that before. But after losing 4-3…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-539038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}